D Y N A M I T E

You´ve probably already read about the start of our Potosi adventure on our last posting (Uyuni). There are three reasons people go to Potosi:

1. See the highest city in the world (yawn),
2. Take a tour of the oldest, richest silver mine in the world (getting warmer)
3. They let tourists buy dynamite and blow stuff up! (ding-ding-ding we have a winner!!!!).

So anyway, when the Spanish came and decimated the native culture they enslaved the locals and forced them to work mining silver from Cerro Ricco (Rich Mountain). The locals had been mining silver for generations but it was only used for ceremonial purposes and had no monitary value and tribal life was a more socialist society (you worked for the king and the king provided what you didn´t have for your basic life). About 20 years ago the then Bolivian government (they´ve only had about 80 presidents in their 180 years to our 43 in 230 years with the longest president serving about 10 years and the shortest serving for only a couple of months) repossed the mines from the evil and rich foreigners and gave the right to mine Cerro Ricco to about 50 different cooperatives. Each of which consists of 20 to 200 miners and many of which allow tourists to explore the mines with a guide.

So, we took a very enlightening tour. The tour starts by suiting you up in some rediculous yellow clothing with huge boots. This is simply to keep your clothing from being destroyed by the dust, mud and other pleasant gunk that is in the mines. Then they take you to a refinery where they separate the valuable silver, zinc and some other minerals from the useless rock. This was pretty cool as Ewa and I are basically large children and like to see big machinery working. They also gave us each a small rock of "pure" silver.

Next they take you to the miners market where you get the opportunity to buy gifts for the miners to say thanks for letting us see your office (coca, soda and explosives). And if you so choose you can buy some supplies for your own personal pyrotechnic show! So cool!

Then we head to the mine. Before we entered the mine, our guide instructed us on how to properly make a bomb.

1. Unrap your dynamite and roll it into a ball.
2. Stick the fuse into the ball
3. Stick the ball and fuse into the plastic bag of fertilizer
4. Lite the fuse
5. RUN LIKE HELL!!!!

I might add that the mountain was really tall. We entered the mine at about 4500m. High enough to be seriously winded running from your personal bomb which is about to blow up! Then again, I´d be seriously winded from that at sea level too, i just would have moved faster at sea level. It was really fun to blow up the dynamite but it´s nothing like the movies. I wanted fire and stuff flying everywhere. Nope. Just a lot of dirt, smoke and a really loud noise (next time I´m buying a gas can and taping the bomb to that!)

The jokes and fun end here...at least for me. As I mentioned we entered the mine at about 4500 meters which is high enough that I was short of breath (I was fine for the first three weeks at altitude but had developed a persistant shortness of breath in Uyuni). The mine shaft that we entered was about 4.5 feet tall so everyone was bent over making it harder to breath. Add in a bunch of silica dust, granite dust, explosive residue and you really can´t breath well even with your mask on. This is why the average miner is only expected to live about 15 years from their first day in the mine per our guide book and about 20-25 years per our guide. These guys (only men) work in what is the most miserable of conditions I´ve ever seen. All for the oportunity to make about US$100 per week (about double the national average) on a bad week to the sky is the limit on a good week. It´s russian rulet and it made me ill to see. I´ve seen mining conditions before in a large Alabama coal mine and they look 100x better. Here everything is manual, there is large scale use of small explosives without any manner of communicating with those around you so you periodically just feel the tunnel shake and a rush of air past you. NOT FUN!!!

Legally you have to be 18 to work in the mines but that does not stop some fathers from pulling their eldest sons from school and making them work in the mines at age 14. We were shocked by how young some of the miners were and when asked they replyed that they were 14. Nothing like a good education.

The miners have an interesting ritual of paying their respects to their "Uncle Jorge". This rituals go back to the lovely spaniards who told the natives that they would be punished by god if they did not do his work. They took the message that if there is a lord above and a devil below they must be stealing from the devil. So they build a statue of the devil, or "Uncle Jorge" as they believe it is bad luck to refer to the devil directly and every friday they stick cigarettes in his mouth and light them, throw coca leaves at his feet and poor booze near him or leave a cup of it for him to drink.

We made it out of the mine and other than some bumps and brusies from crawling through the smaller tunnels or hitting our helmets into the short tunnel.